Ice Hunter (32 page)

He got to the scene first and cursed his luck. Dammitall.

It was a nice house, lawn cut, flowers in beds, real homeowners, none of this a clue to what went on inside.

There was a woman sitting on the steps of the front porch. Her face was swollen, nicked and bruised, one eye puffed closed, her sundress torn, and she didn't seem to care to try hiding any of what hung out. He listened for sirens of responding units and heard none. He would have to handle it.

“I'm Officer Service,” he told the woman.

“Harold's inside,” she mumbled with blood in her mouth.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

She waved him on. No venom in her body language, which might be a good sign. Maybe the worst was over. Where the hell
were
the county people? COs plugging holes. Did that little Dutch boy die with his thumb in the dike? He couldn't remember.

He peered into a small foyer and went inside, easing open the door but not closing it. He didn't want it swinging shut and alarming anyone. He looked into the living room and saw an immense man, shirtless, sitting on the couch with a pistol in his lap. It was a a big- bore revolver, a serious hogleg.

“Sir . . . Harold?”

“I've had enough,” the man said wearily.

“Are you okay?” The man had no visible damage.

“I can't take this shit anymore.”

“Yessir,” Service said. Humor him. Come on, county.

“I do everything around here,” Harold said, “while she sits on her ass all day, then goes visiting neighbors at night. She didn't drag her ass home till four this morning and now she thinks she's going out again. Did you see how she was dressed?” Harold looked up to make eye contact and Service didn't like what he saw in the man's face.

Don't take sides, Service told himself. “Well, she came home safe. That's good.”

Harold looked up. Rheumy eyes. “You buying her bullshit?”

Damn. “Sir, you look pretty tired.” Change the subject. Neutralize the pistol first.

“I know what I'm doing,” Harold said. “
She
knows too.”

“Harold, can you help me get an ice water?”

“Let her do it. She likes men.” Harold pursed his lips and made a sucking sound.

A voice behind Service said, “Hi Harold, how ya doin'?”

It was Deputy Alice Hadanak. She stepped beside Service but kept her eyes on the man on the couch. “I saw Mabel outside, Harold. She doesn't look so good.”

“I just marked her up,” Harold said. “I figure the neighbor won't want her, all those marks.”

“You know me, Harold. I want to hear your side, Harold, hear everything you have to say, but you know I don't like guns. They make me antsy.”

Hadanak was very cool, very professional. Her holster was also unsnapped.

She moved away from Service and he knew what that meant. If Harold started shooting, he'd have a difficult time getting both of them.

“I won't shoot the slut,” Harold said. “I'm a decent Christian, and it's against my religion.”

Hadanak said, “Put the pistol on the couch beside you, Harold, and get up slowly and let's go get us something cool to drink. Officer Service is thirsty, right, Grady?”

“Parched,” Service said.

Harold leered and grinned. “I know this drill.”

Service sensed Hadanak tensing.

What occurred next happened fast, but seemed like slo-mo while it was going on. Harold lifted the pistol from his lap, turned it at his head, and fired. Pieces of wall plasterboard and dust showered the room. The smell of cordite spread.

Hadanak dived onto Harold and knocked his gun away. Harold was much larger than her and retaliated by smacking her hard with a forearm.

Service swept the revolver down a wooden hallway with his foot and jumped in, getting Harold by the hair, pulled him off the couch and slammed him to the floor, twisting an arm behind him, and felt breathtaking pain in his shoulder. The man struggled with surprising strength, but Service pressed his knee to the man's spine and stilled him.

Hadanak looked dazed, but managed to crawl over and put her cuffs on the man. Her nose was gushing blood.

Another deputy came rushing in, stopped and stared dumbfounded at what he saw. It was Avery.

“Jesus Christ, Service! You
are
everywhere.”

Service didn't stay. As first on the scene, new state regs said he had to fill out the report, but Hadanak told him not to sweat it, that she would take care of it.

He helped get Hadanak's bloody nose stanched then drove directly to Nantz's house and stood on the front porch, his shoulder screaming.

He saw the door open and felt Nantz's arm around his waist. Newf's tail banged against him.

“We need to get you to a doctor,” Nantz said.

“No doctor, no hospital,” he said.

“Where are you hurt?” she asked.

“I'm not qualified to give medical opinions.”

He tried to move but couldn't. He had gone numb. Nothing seemed to work and he felt frozen in place. The old man wouldn't have liked this.

When was it? Seven, eight, playing up against twelve-year-olds, the old man's idea. Push push push. Hit by a puck behind the knee. No padding there. Just scrawny leg, sinew, bone. Left leg numb. Carried off the ice, fussed over. The old man had been there, in his face, pushing others away, hovering. Whiskey breath. “What's your problem?”

“My leg.” Probably whined. The old man hated whiners and complainers.

“You got two, eh? Get your butt back out there and play through it.”

Which he did.

That night he punched his pillow and cried until all his energy was gone, the anger ebbed away like a slow tide. The pillow as his father's head, adolescent Yooper voodoo. Why the hell didn't his father care?

But he had cared, believing in lessons, not words. Pain, injury, and sorrow were all part of life. You lived or gave in to it. He would have liked to tell the old man that he understood. Too late. Story of his life. Always too damn late for the important shit.

“What was that about your father?” Nantz asked. “You were mumbling.”

“I'm fine,” he said gruffly as he stepped inside.

She studied him the way a bug doctor looked at a Japanese beetle. “Yep, you look real peachy.”

“Stay out of my hair,” he said.

“First I'd have to get in it.”

He couldn't even look at her. “Nantz . . .”

He shook his head, grimacing to swallow a laugh. It would hurt too much to laugh.

“Take a hot shower, Service.”

He showered in pain, put on his dirty clothes, and made his way downstairs to the kitchen. Nantz pulled out a chair and said, “Sit.”

She brought him an omelet unlike any he'd ever seen.

“Nice omelet.”

“I do it all,” she said.

He didn't doubt it. “What's in this?” he asked, reaching for ketchup.

She grabbed his hand, sending pain up into his shoulder. “Eat it the way I cooked it, barbarian.”

He tasted it. Delicious. He ate with his left hand, dropping a lot.

“Tomatoes,” she said. “Garlic, onion, green pepper, red pepper, teaspoon of minced jalapeño, a little cayenne, black olives, parsley, sour cream.”

The list made him dizzy. “It's great.”

“Unlike your right arm,” she said. “You winced when I grabbed your wrist and you're eating with your left hand.”

“I'm ambidextrous.”

“That can be proven only in bed,” she said. “Raise your right arm. Go on.”

He put down his fork, looked at her, and exhaled. “I can't.”

“The old housemate give you a romp?”

He told her about Harold and Deputy Alice Hadanak, the backup call, the half-assed suicide attempt, the scuffle, his dive, the earlier fracas over the deer. “I should've waited for the county,” he said.

“Right, and old Harold might have blown his brains out.”

“His wife might've preferred that.”

She said, “You walk the walk, but you can't handle the talk.”

He looked up at her.

She was smug. “It means, my dear Officer Service, that you are one dedicated and heroic sonuvabitch and you can't deal with it.”

“I suppose you have a degree in psychology.”

“Nope, but I went to a shrink for years.”

“For what?”

“To humor my mother.”

“Did it work?”

“Nope, all the man wanted to do was bounce me on his wee-wee.”

Service rolled his eyes. “Do you
ever
tell the truth?”

She batted her eyes, lifted a hand, crooked her little finger. “He was bent like this, one of those banana types, dinky and curved.”

“You're sick,” he said.

“I thought you men liked stories.”

“Not today.”

She said, “It's your day off and we're not wasting it.”

“Day off,” he said, “
means
waste.”

“That's truly pathetic, Service,” she said.

“What?”

He called Simon del Olmo. So far, Fox was staying put. Service said he would check in later. He told Nantz about Fox and the stakeout.

“You think Fox killed Kerr and Jerry Allerdyce?”

“I don't know he didn't.”

“If he did, you're taking a big chance leaving him alone. You know what your problem is?”

“No,” he said.

“
That's
your problem,” she said disgustedly.

She took him upstairs to the spare bedroom and he must have registered surprise.

“You need rest,” she said. “I don't fuck crips, gimps, or grumps.”

Newf looked from him to the door and followed Nantz.

Service said, “Traitor.”

“Don't pick on the dog,” Nantz yelled back at him.

19

He awoke at six the next morning thinking about Fox, Nantz, and his father. The old man had gone his own way, oblivious to opinions. Hell, he had been oblivious to
life
. His job had been everything and nothing, all at once. It didn't make it right, but he was beginning to understand him.

The shoulder was cement again, pain replaced by near-total numbness. It had been a slight separation to start, but he knew it was worse now. He had never been good about following the directions of doctors. Damn Harold what's-his-face.

He labored out of bed and went tentatively downstairs. Newf came out of Nantz's bedroom and followed him. He made two pieces of toast and took them outside. Newf joined him, her tail wagging. She ran around while he got into his truck and switched on the radio. “Marquette, DNR 421 is on.”

“Roger, have a nice day!”

Nice day? Not in
this
body.

It took a while to get through to del Olmo. “Do you still have Fox?”

“He's sitting as tight as
el gato
with narcolepsy. The cops say we ought to tap the phone.”

“Negative.” He didn't want a judge brought in yet. The case was still circumstantial. “Just stick to him.”

“The cops are asking why such a long watch. You know how cops are.”

He knew. “Fox is a prime suspect in a case that we're making. That's all they need to know. Did you talk to your DEQ counterparts yet?”

“I'm assured that no development plan or drilling permit for Knipe came through the Crystal Falls office. But they say he could go around or over and bypass them.”

“Thanks.” Bypass the locals? If so, how high would Knipe have to go? Damn Bozian. His splitting DEQ out of the DNR had politicized all the environmental stuff. Service hated Lansing but decided he would have to go down there and do some squeezing.

He called McKower and asked for a meeting at the roadside park on US 41. Nantz padded out to the truck in running shorts and flipflops, carrying two cups of coffee. She thrust one toward him and stood outside the driver's window, sipping and blinking with sleep.

“How's the shoulder?”

He moved it and tried to hide the pain.

“I thought so,” she said. “You're at work already?”

“In a case like this, you can't let up. The breaks come from small details that suddenly take on a new importance. If you let up, you can lose it all.”

“Don't I know it,” she said wistfully. “Do you want Newf to stay with me today?”

“Do you mind?”

“I face a day of scut work. She'll be fine at the office.”

“I don't know when I'll be back,” he said.

“My door's always open,” she said. She ducked her head in the window and kissed him passionately. When she pulled away she stroked his cheek and said, “Kick some ass out there today, Officer Service.”

“Yes ma'am.”

He looked in the rearview mirror and saw her wave from the driveway. Then he shifted his mind to business and headed for the meeting with Lis.

With her name added to the lieutenant's list, McKower wore gleaming new silver bars on her collar. It was strange not to see stripes on her sleeves.

“Do I salute or bow?”

She snorted, “Bow and you'll get a feel for my boot size. What was the deal with Pryzbycki and Beaudoin?”

LT McKower was like Sergeant McKower, right down to brass tacks.

He pointed to the picnic bench. “Let's sit.” Service took a deep breath and let it out. “Here it is, Lis, the whole thing. Jerry Allerdyce and probably a man named Kerr were murdered in the Tract by a man named Fox. Fox engineered two fires in the Tract. Allerdyce and Kerr were helping him. He killed them to cover what they were doing. I believe Fox works in some capacity for Wildcat, Inc., a mining engineering company owned by a man named Seton Knipe. I know he's done work for Knipe in the past. What Fox has done, he's probably done for Knipe, not solo. I don't have all the evi dence yet, but I'd bet on it. Simon del Olmo has Fox under surveillance in Crystal Falls. That's what Mossy Camp was about. We got lucky and intercepted him near there and we've been on him ever since. The cops in Crystal Falls are assisting Simon del Olmo. He has ninety-nine-year leases to two land parcels in the Tract and I
know
he's planning something there. I just don't know how or what or when. Not yet.”

“Leased land in the Tract?” she asked as if she were trying to classify the information. Then she added, “Murders are not our jurisdiction, Grady.”

“Fox took a shot at me in the Tract and any felony there is my business.”

“Let the blue suits handle this,” she said in her stony supervisor's voice.

“No.”

“Grady, you are a loose cannon and if you keep going, you're going to leave me no choice. We have rules and procedures. We're law enforcement officers, not freelancers. We are a team and we are disciplined. You do not own the Tract.”

He wanted to rip up her damn book, but he also understood the threat: suspension without pay, or worse. There were various DNR officials in Lansing who weren't exactly his fans, which meant he could expect the worst. And if Bozian jumped in, he could be out on his ear, with no pension.

He told himself he didn't care.

“Are you getting Rollie's job?” he asked. There was enough speculation circulating.

She made eye contact and nodded. “You want to know why? Because there is not one lieutenant in the state who wants to put up with your shit, Service.”

Ouch. “You accepted?”

“Yes.”

Service sensed a moment of truth for them. If she wouldn't help, he might as well walk away. “There are diamonds in the Tract, Lis.”

She started to grin, but this quickly faded when she realized he wasn't joking.

“Where?”

He fetched his maps and charts, showed her the locations, walked her through the whole situation, one step at a time, omitting nothing except for his suspicions about what the governor might do.

She thought for quite a while. “Fox shot at you?”

He nodded and showed her the photograph Nantz had taken.

“This is pretty wild, Grady. You got Limpy out of jail. Why?”

“He's got more value to us outside than in.”

“How?”

“He pointed us to Kerr and to Knipe's leases in the Tract.”

“That's thin. You know where Fox is but you haven't sworn charges. What if he kills again? You're being impetuous and endangering public safety.”

“Fox isn't a serial killer, Lis. He murdered Jerry and Kerr to cover his tracks. The shot at me was meant as a warning.” Probably, he thought.

“Kerr was Limpy's cellmate in Jackson. Limpy set Jerry up with Kerr and I believe Kerr had the connection to Knipe.”

“Is Limpy part of this?”

“I don't think so. He simply provided the lead.”

She shook her head. “I don't like this.”

“Goddammit, Lis. You know how a case gets made. We have a puzzle, we put the pieces together, get the picture straight, find and assemble the evidence, make the arrests.”

“Don't lecture me.”

Her temper was surfacing.

“Then stop being a fucking lieutenant and think like a CO and listen to me!”

Her face flushed. McKower stared at him in disbelief. “What . . . do. . . you . . . propose . . . to . . . do . . . next?” she asked with great deliberation.

“You've heard about diamond exploration around Crystal Falls?”

“Vaguely.”

“I believe Knipe's company is part of that. I'm going down to Lansing. I need to know if Knipe is getting permitted over the heads of the DEQ in Crystal Falls.”

“And if he is?”

“That depends on where he's permitted. If it's for his Crystal Falls property, that's one thing. If it's for the Tract, we have a different problem. If they issue permits in Lansing, he can drill and we can't do a damn thing about it except encourage a lawsuit going from outside groups.”

She nibbled the inside of her cheek. “You're stepping on all kinds of jurisdictions, Grady. Permits are the DEQ's business, not ours. And you shouldn't have told me any of this,” she added.

“You asked.”

“I'm new at this crap.”

“I can't take it back.”

McKower stood up. “Stay away from Lansing, Grady. If you show up down there, they'll try to chop off your head. I'll get a fix on Knipe's permit status. This meeting never happened, understood?”

He nodded, overwhelmed by a surge of affection for her.

“If Knipe has the legal right to drill, Grady, you
will
uphold the law.”

“I know what the law says. Mining is illegal in the Tract, but given the way things are under Bozian, I wouldn't put it past Lansing to give Wildcat a green light there.”

“If they get permits, they can go forward.”

“They are not going to drill in the Tract.”

“If Lansing permits the Mosquito, the operation can go forward.”

“Bullshit. Lansing can't give permits to drill where the law doesn't allow it.”

“Such arguments are in the purview of lawyers, not cops.”

“If DEQ is pressured to grant permits, their lawyers won't fight. Somebody else will have to file for an injunction and get the thing into court.”

“How do you always end up in tangled cases?” she asked.

“Must be luck,” he said. “All bad. But when I make a case, it always sticks.”

“One of these times it won't. I'll handle Lansing and check the permits for you, Grady. After that everything you tell me will be on the record and by the book.”

“Yes Lieutenant Ma'am.”

“Do you seriously believe there are diamonds in the Tract?”

“I do.” He didn't tell her that he had the best evidence there was.

She put an arm up to his neck, pulled him down, and kissed him gently on the lips. “If this Fox was warning you off with a shot, that's one thing. If he had something else in mind and screwed the pooch, that's another. I think you should push to pick up Fox now, but I am not going to interfere. Yet. As long as Fox is loose, you watch your step, hear?”

McKower walked toward her green jeep and stopped. “If there really are diamonds in the Tract, you still have a problem even if you stop Knipe.”

He nodded.

When she got into the driver's seat, she put her windowdown. “If you stop Knipe and there's no diamonds to be found, no problem.”

McKower gazed meaningfully at him a long time before driving away.

No diamonds, no problem. He understood what he needed to do, not how.

He lit a cigarette and tried Nantz on his cellular and radio, but she had her ears off or was ignoring calls. With her, either was possible.

Service got on the road. He had a lot to do.

His first stop was at OSF St. Francis Hospital to see Vince Vilardo the Delta county medical examiner. In the old days coroners had been elected at the county level. Now a state medical examiner law allowed for the appointment of an ME in each county. Service had known Vilardo and his wife for many years. The internist owned a parcel of land with a small stream that filled with steelhead every fall and spring and was overrun by poachers. COs were there so often during those two seasons that the Vilardos gave them open access to their home. Vilardo could have made much more money practicing medicine just about anywhere outside the U.P., but chose to remain.

Service found the ME at his clinic in the hospital.

The doctor's receptionist fetched him as soon as Service arrived. They walked outside, where both of them lit up cigarettes. “Do we have an ID on the body from the Mosquito?” the CO asked.

“I don't have the file here, but the man's name is Kerr. We identified him with dental records and fingerprints and several small tattoos. I heard you found him, eh? And not too far from where you found Allerdyce.”

“Yep.” Vilardo understood the possible link.

“I don't know which is worse, scooping up a corpse or opening it up,” the ME said.

“Probably depends on when your next meal is,” Service said.

The doctor smiled. “So true, so true.”

“Did you recover a bullet?”

“We harvested one good one and some fragments.”

“Enough for comparative ballistics?”

“You'd have to get the definitive answer from the state lab people in Negaunee, but I'd say it should be adequate. We took a good one out of Allerdyce.”

“Caliber?”

“Looked like 5.56-millimeter to us, but the official ruling will come from ballistics. A caliber of this type is likely to go all the way to the lab in Lansing for confirmation. I can't say when we'll get it back. You know how that music plays.”

He did. Law enforcement and prosecutors were extremely finicky about the chain of custody of bullets. They had to be moved to the lab in such a way that there would not be even a theoretical chance of tampering. Too many cases had failed because the chain of custody had not been adhered to. In Detroit such movement was no big deal, but in the U.P. you had to contend with long distances, which slowed down the process. And if Negaunee decided to seek additional help from the state police forensics lab in Lansing, the time multiplied.